Anyone know why the water from the tap and the water in my tank has a different ph? The tap read around 7.2 with my test kit and the water in the tank read around 6.0.... I dont use any chemicals to raise or lower the ph when i do water changes...only things i use during water changes are water conditioner and salt. Does any one of these products lower ph??? Just trying to figure it out...
Water?
- Thread starter baracuda
- Start date
wood will lower the ph. Also, if you have lots of biological material breaking down, it can lower the pH. Do regular water changes and you should see your pH stay closer to the tap pH.
Yeah,the Biological procesess breaking down Ammonia to Nitrite then Nitrate have a lowering effect on PH.If you have a fairly large volume of water and do smaller water changes then it's shouldnt swing,but if you have a 30 gal and do 75% alot then it will swing like monkey
Salt usually buffers the pH to a certian degree, but lots of wood will bring it down, also the amount of bio-load you have has an effect on it.
I guess its the bioload because i have no wood in the tank. Its a 60 gal tank with 2 AC 70's and a JEBO canister filter that does 300gph. Dont understand how the bioload would be the problem though since i only have a couple of jags in there. Checked the other water params and they are fine except for a moderately high nitrate reading. But ive always had a problem with nitrate cuz the tap from here already has some nitrate in it unless my test kit is bad but i doubt it since i just got it. The jags are messy but i thought it would be ok since the water is turned over many times p/h. Thanks for the replies guys!!
Now that I have woken up, water without any buffers usually drops pH. EG, If you had a bucket of water at 10 pH one day, came back a week later, it may be 6.6.